7.1 Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives
Children have spent much of the first three years of life bonding with their caregivers, learning how to move their bodies, and exploring their environments. In the next three years we see all of their hard work pay off as children begin to understand and interact with the world around them using increasingly complex thought and language. Preschool aged children strive for independence, skill mastery, and understanding. The ever curious preschooler is full of questions about what they notice in the world and this is a time when they often ask “why?”
We label the ages of three to six years old as the preschool years because many children have not entered formal schooling yet. The caregivers in a preschooler’s life continue to play a significant role in their learning and in their cognitive and language growth. The preschool years are an exciting time for development but they can also pose a challenge for children and their families due to various social and environmental issues that persist from the early years of development. We will explore several of these factors in this chapter.
7.1.1 Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to do the following:
- Identify the milestones of preschooler cognitive and language development.
- Understand the diverse approaches and cultural influences in development and parenting.
- Understand impact of caregivers and environmental influences on cognitive and language development.
- Analyze the relationship between access to services and life outcomes.
7.1.2 Key Terms
Throughout this chapter, you will be introduced to important key terms that will help deepen your understanding of human development.
- Centration: when children focus on only one aspect of an object.
- Conservation: the understanding that something can stay the same quantity even though its appearance may change.
- Executive functions: processes in the prefrontal cortex that include working memory, attention, problem solving, and impulse control.
- Fast-mapping: the process by which words are easily learned by making connections between new words and learned concepts.
- Intuitive thought substage: A substage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development where children begin to use intuitive thinking.
- Long term memory: also known as permanent memory, this is the third stage of the memory system comprised of declarative and nondeclarative memories.
- Overregulation: the process by which children apply language rules too generally resulting in grammar errors.
- Prefrontal cortex: an area of the brain responsible for decision making, problem solving and emotional regulation.
- Private speech: a form of self directed speech in which a child dialogues with themselves in order to solve a problem or to think something through.
- Reversibility: refers to the ability to reverse a sequence of events.
- Self-regulation skills: are strategies that are used to manage thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.
- Sensory memory: the first stage of the memory system in which sensory information is stored in its raw form for a very brief duration.
- Short term memory: also known as working memory, this is the second stage of the memory system in which conscious effort and adequate attention is needed to function effectively.
- Transductive reasoning: occurs when a child is unable to understand cause and effect logically so they rely on their natural reasoning.
7.1.3 Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives
“Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives” by Christina Belli is licensed under CC BY 4.0.